Bright view of self-portraiture

Susan Bright gave an entertaining and informative talk on self portraiture at Toronto's inaugural Flash Forward Festival

Author:

Diane Smyth

Click above for a video of curator and writer Susan Bright in action at the Flash Forward Festival, Toronto on 08 October, talking through the importance of self portraiture in photography and some of the examples she picked out for her recent book on the subject, Auto Focus. The talk was part of Flash Forward's impressive roster of speakers, which also included Stephen Mayes, who heads up the VII Photo agency, and Magnum photographer Alec Soth.

For me, one of the most interesting things about Bright's talk was her honest take on book editing - this isn't a so-called objective take on contemporary self-portraiture, something probably impossible to achieve anyway - it's a personal selection of some of the most interesting examples from around the world. Bright was pregnant when she worked on the book and, she cheerfully admitted, had a particular weakness for images of pregancy and motherhood at the time. Check out Auto Focus or Bright's article on self-portraiture in the November issue of BJP to find out more.

Comments

Speak up!

'... entertaining and informative ...' I'm sure it was, and I wish I'd been there - the sound quality on this makes it unwatchable.

Posted by: RJA on 22 Oct 2010 at 19:22

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